3 Reasons We Hire Professional Carpet Cleaners

Over my 9 -10 years of blogging, I have gotten SO many questions regarding carpeting… more specifically:

1. How often we clean our carpets…

2. What tools we use to clean them…

3. If we hire a professional carpet cleaner or try to DIY…

Here are my quick answers:

1. I vacuum our carpets 2-3 times every week. I spot-treat as necessary. We get our carpets professionally deep cleaned once a year (or more if needed).

2. I have a Sanitaire vacuum and a Hoover canister vac (with all the attachments). I also have a can of spot treatment I purchased from our carpet cleaners

3. We ALWAYS hire professionals to clean our carpets.

I know it might seem odd that my frugal, DIY self would want to pay someone else to clean our carpets every year… but as I mentioned in this post, there are just some things Dave and I feel are worth paying the pros for — and carpet cleaning is definitely on that list!

Our carpet cleaner (TLC Carpet Cleaning) is my parents’ neighbor, so I grew up with his family and we always had him clean our carpets. When Dave and I got married, it just seemed normal to continue hiring him for our once-a-year carpet deep cleaning needs.

Since then, we have faithfully had our carpets professionally cleaned each year, despite the fact that I’ve been sent numerous in-home carpet cleaners and steamers for review (I gave them all away).

Today, I’m sharing why!

NOTE: This post is not sponsored in any way — my carpet cleaner doesn’t even know I’m publishing it today.

Miss Nora “vacuuming” (2013)

1. Professional carpet cleaning is SO much faster.

We get our carpets cleaned once a year (sometimes more if we’re doing lots of construction projects) and it takes LESS THAN 1 hour for him to clean all the carpet in our home — a large living room, stairs, 2 good size bedrooms, and the landing area.

It’s amazing!

In the 2 experiences I’ve had with using an in-home carpet “steamer” or cleaner, it has taken me almost an hour just to get everything set up and running. Not to mention the time it takes to continually empty out the dirty water and replace it with clean water.

We do usually move almost all the furniture in the rooms (besides the beds and couches) so it’s easy for him to clean without stopping to move more furniture, but even still, there’s no way I could come close to cleaning all our carpets in less than an hour — it would probably take me the better part of a weekend if I were doing it with an in-home unit!

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2. Professional carpet cleaning is SO much more powerful.

If you’ve ever had your carpets professionally cleaned, you know how loud it can be if you’re out by their truck/van. The motors are so powerful — it’s really not even comparable to using any sort of DIY cleaning unit.

We’ve gotten large stains in our carpeting that I COULD NOT GET OUT… only to have our carpet cleaner come and have the carpet looking like new again in 10 minutes.

Seriously, Nora once dumped an entire bottle of Kitchen Bouquet on our light colored carpeting. I tried 10 different things to get that stain out… then I contacted our carpet cleaners and it completely “disappeared” like magic. That was 6 years ago and the stain has never come back!

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3. Professional carpet cleaning gives me SO much more peace of mind.

I’ve always had a “thing” for dirty carpets, which is probably why we’ve chosen to go with mostly hard flooring on the main floor in our home.

I CANNOT stand dirty carpets… especially with little babies crawling and laying on the carpets (which we’ve had for the last 7 years).

I vacuum regularly (2-3 times per week), we don’t wear shoes inside, we don’t have pets, and we rarely eat anything in carpeted areas. Even still, there is so much dust, human hair, dead skin cells, little bugs, etc. that can get embedded into our carpet fibers on a daily basis — just from normal life.

Knowing we get all our carpets thoroughly deep cleaned by a professional every year gives me a little more peace of mind… and yes, I know this is just my own weird carpet issues, but truly, our carpeting looks and feels brand new every time we get them cleaned.

I’ve called around to a few local companies (mainly for research on this post!) and we could get all the carpets in our home cleaned for less than $300.

Considering the amount of time, effort, and sanity this saves me — and the fact that it’s only a once-a-year expense for our home makes it more than worth it in my opinion.

Less than $1 a day for professionally cleaned carpets? Yes please!

I know this is just a personal preference for me… not the “only” way of doing things. I have friends who prefer to use their in-home carpet cleaners on a monthly basis (or weekly when necessary!) — and that IS a perk of owning your own unit. I just know I personally wouldn’t take the time to get my steamer/cleaner out that regularly, so by the time I got around to cleaning the carpets on my own, they’d be extra dirty and it would take me even longer.

My goal for this post is not to say every person should pay to have their carpets professionally cleaned, but rather to share what works for us and why we choose to pay professionals for this job… now I can just refer all future carpet questioners to this post!

Leave a comment

34 comments

I tried to clean the carpet myself after an accident with a blackcurrant drink AHHHHHH. I actually made it worse and ended up calling someone. Maybe there are occasions when its best to call in professional carpet cleaners to fix it, especially if it an expensive carpet or can not be remedied by careful feng shui hiding tactics.

Debbie

04/03/2019

We’ve only had our carpets cleaned once and we’re going on 6 years living in our newly built house. We don’t wear shoes in our house, don’t have kids or pets and we’re pretty good at keeping our spaces clean and maintained. I still value getting professional carpet cleaning, but I think we need it less frequently done than most.

I agree, carpet cleaning is one of those things that you should leave to the professionals. There is a lot of dirt, stains, and more that a vacuum or home carpet cleaner just isn’t powerful enough to remove.

My wife and I are thinking about hiring carpet steam cleaning services for our house. It is good to know that professional carpet cleaning is able to get stains out. I have a big one that I want to remove.

Jane

03/15/2019

What kind of carpet do you have if you don’t mind sharing? Do you prefer carpet over hardwood throughout your house? We are thinking about replacing the carpet in our kids’s bedrooms and wondered if you have any suggestions… I do think certain things are definitely worth hiring professional help!

I have no idea… expensive carpeting! haha! Well, it always seems super expensive whenever I have to purchase it! I think I mentioned it in the post, but I would most definitely prefer hardwood over carpeting (which is why our main floor is almost entirely hard wood), but with little kids and babies, carpeting is nice for crawling around. Eventually, as the kids get older, we’ll probably replace more of the carpeting with hard wood, but for now, they love their carpeted bedrooms and playrooms!

Amy

03/15/2019

I completely agree with you about professional cleaning! It makes such a big difference & is so much more efficient! We have a lot of carpeting (including our master bath, yuck!) but we aren’t quite to the point of doing a renovation yet. Having it cleaned makes me feel better about keeping the carpet for a bit longer. I need to get ours done again soon. I’ll wait until the weather warms up a bit here first I think though.

oh carpeted bathrooms — honestly, WHAT WHERE PEOPLE THINKING???? If your feet are cold in the bathroom, put a rug down. So nasty! All our bathrooms were carpeted when we moved into this house, and in our last house, they even put carpeting IN THE KITCHEN — what!?!?!

HA HA HA Andrea my father was a residential builder by trade and when the family moved into our final family home it was 1970s pattern carpet in the kitchen! it was horrific! it didn’t get pulled up until 1996 and that was because he forgot to turn the kitchen sink off one day and flooded the whole room!

No bathroom carpet at that point though – just many small floor tiles! My poor mum having to clean all that grout with 5 kids!

thanks for the timely post! Just looked into quotes for our carpet clean – probably a year (maybe two – oops!) late!!

JJ

03/15/2019

When we moved into our new to us house I was 9 months pregnant. There was no way I could do it on top of moving with two little kids and just having really low energy. There had only been one previous owner, but still. It was a lifesaver!!! And that picture of Nora with that carpet stain is priceless!!! So awesome you already knew someone!!! The place we used for a storage unit(only used for a couple of months for the move) also offered carpet cleaning. And I think it was discounted because we had a unit there.

Shelley

03/15/2019

I work for a local cleaning company (maybe we spoke on the phone while you were researching). The best thing about having it professionally cleaned is that you know they are able to extract most of the moisture out of the carpet. Many people who clean carpet themselves do not have machines powerful enough to do that, leaving the padding under the carpet soaked. Also, these companies have access to cleaning products that can get those tough stains out…and the knowledge it takes to know what works best for each stain. I am happy to leave carpet cleaning to the pros.

Allison

03/15/2019

We ripped out all the carpet and installed hardwood floors. In the livingroom, I use a large Ruggable area rug which has been amazing as we have 5 pets and my very messy husband loves to eat on the couch. It is a two part rug system where the top layer comes off and is machine washable. They are definitely not plush but offer some level of comfort. https://ruggable.com/

Thanks Alison — I’ve seen these rugs. They always catch my eye as I wondered if they could REALLY fit in a washing machine! I was also wondering about the “plushness” or “thickness” of them — but I guess you answered that for me!

I have an 8×10 that is a squeeze in my old top load machine so I will take that to a laundry mat if necessary but for the smaller 3×5 and 2.5×7 runner, it is so nice to just throw in the machine. I think the 8×10 would fit in a large capacity machine without an agitator. It isn’t that much bigger than a king size comforter because the top layer is only as thick as blackout lined curtains.

Ruth

03/15/2019

I agree that carpets are gross! We don’t wear shoes anywhere in our house, ever, and it’s still gross the things that come out! When we moved into our current house, I had all the original hardwood refinished throughout the entire house, I loved it! But…. the noise issue was too much to deal with, yikes! I never knew how much sound carpets absorbed. So we recarpeted all the upstairs. And I bought a Dyson vacuum. It is incredible how much that thing sucks filth up!

yes, carpets help with noise, comfort, and warmth… which is why we opted to put carpeting upstairs in the kids rooms. However, if it were just Dave and me living here, we’d have hardwood throughout the entire home. I LOVE all the hardwood on our main floor!

Ally Snoderly

03/15/2019

We just had our carpets professionally cleaned last weekend. We do this at least once a year. It is amazing how clean they can get our carpets. Not to mention, it only took them 45 minutes to clean our main living areas. It would have taken me all day. It’s completely worth the money!

Kimberley

03/15/2019

I have to agree that time is $ in this case! All the time saved from having someone do it for you is much better in the long run. We just moved into our new home at the end of last July but I plan to have someone professionally clean the carpets and tile floors in our home in July/August of this year. I assume with both, it will probably cost me about $600, hoping to find a coupon to offset some of the cost, but the peace of mind I will get from it will be worth it!

Rhonda

03/15/2019

We have hired a professional, although not for a few years – I’m due! I agree with you. The fee for the person we have hired in the past is so reasonable and it’s done so quickly, plus gets rid of stains I thought might be impossible. It’s a good idea to hire the professionals!

I’ve always been impressed with the stains they get out. When we first moved into our home, one of the upstairs bedrooms was so stained and grungy but we didn’t want to rip out that carpeting yet as we had so many other projects to do first. After having that carpet cleaned, it was literally an entirely different color (we could tell by looking in the closet)! Crazy!

Annette Silveira

03/15/2019

Carpet mostly grosses me out so our whole house is hardwood. I fluff the throw rugs twice a week (wash them once a month) and vacuum the rugs under our desks a couple times a week. It is amazing how much junk is in the dryer lint trap and the vacuum canister every time.

I agree with you — it basically just grosses me out. However, Dave really likes carpeting (and it is warmer) so we compromised that I get hard floor everywhere on the main floor except the living room 🙂

Pamela

Amy

03/15/2019

We get the carpets cleaned professionally as well, I actually just scheduled it for next week! We’re having them clean the tile in our kitchen as well. The previous owners put in white grout and it’s impossible to keep clean, so I’m hoping it looks clean afterwards!

Gervy

03/15/2019

You’ve sold me – this post feels like a sign 🙂 We have a single room of carpeting at our place – the family room – and I knocked my coffee onto it the other day. I can’t get the stain out. Every time I walk through the room I feel upset! My husband thinks I’m crazy to want to get steam cleaning for one room but now I am convinced it will be worth the expense and effort to organise.